


kings among runaways

by livenudebigfoot



Series: Lyrics Stolen from a Song About Rentboys [2]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prostitution, Attempted Rape, Flashbacks, Gen, M/M, Roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-05
Updated: 2012-12-05
Packaged: 2017-11-20 08:54:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/583533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livenudebigfoot/pseuds/livenudebigfoot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Fusco keeps picking up the same homeless guy." A brief history of partnership.</p>
            </blockquote>





	kings among runaways

_Fusco keeps picking up the same homeless guy. That's not so weird, in and of itself. Everybody's got a few reoccurring creeps, guys they just keep arresting over and over throughout the years until they're almost friends._

_Fusco's not friends with the homeless guy, but he'll begrudgingly admit that he throws one hell of a punch._

_He sits across from the bum, black eye blossoming, and watches as he goes to town on a Dixie cup of water. "Is there a drought?" Fusco asks._

_The bum stops, sets the cup down, wipes bright little drops of water out of his gnarled beard. "I was dehydrated," he mutters. Fusco has to lean forward to hear it. The bum is a tall, lethal kind of guy, but he has a real soft voice. His eyes, clear and sharp and indifferent in a way that gives Fusco the creeps, snap up to stare solemnly into Fusco's. "You shouldn't deprive your prisoners. It could be considered police brutality."_

_"You shouldn't fight with cops. It causes police brutality."_

_The homeless guy gives a very slight shrug._

***

He's been fucked in the ass a _lot_ since he started doing this, and at best, he's been indifferent to it. At worst, it's been really goddamn painful. What this tells him is that he just plain doesn't like it.

Somehow, this hasn't stopped it from happening, and Fusco thinks that might be really fucked up.

Today, this is one of those "at worst" times, and even though it's all over, he's scared to move in case he finds out that something ripped back there.

 _It hasn't_ , he reprimands himself. _It'd hurt worse if it had._

It's irrational, but still.

Somewhere behind him, Night Shift hums as he takes his piss.

 _Just remember. You could be screwing that nice billionaire right now._ Sometimes his brain likes to taunt him with nice things that he almost had or never did.

Fusco is not really sure what Night Shift's problem is, but he suspects it's actually a lot of problems all rolled into one big personality disorder. He knows Night Shift's name, even if he doesn't care to use it. He knows Night Shift takes a lot of drugs, but doesn't want to share, and Fusco's okay with that because whatever Night Shift is on, Fusco doesn't want. He knows Night Shift likes to wound, hard enough that it still hurts days later, but not hard enough to ruin Fusco long term, for them to decide he's not worth the agony and drop him.

They'd drop him anyway, but he's such a reliable source of income.

"Lionel?" says Reese's fuzzy voice in his ear. "You awake?"

Fusco imagines falling asleep with Night Shift in the room, dropping off there like he can trust Night Shift not to do something fucking awful to him while he's asleep. Ha ha. Funny joke, Reese. "Yeah," he mutters into the faintly yellow pillow. "I'm awake."

"How bad?" Reese asks, like it's a given, because it is.

He takes a deep breath, starts to take inventory. His ass is raw and stinging, but that's to be expected. He doesn't seem to be bleeding, which is a relief and the panicky, irrational voice in the back of his head quiets down. He finds indents of fingernails in the flesh of his hips and knows that they will turn to bruises before long, which isn't so bad in the scheme of things. Long, raised scratches on his chest and belly, but no broken skin, thank god.

His shoulders are what he expects, little raw spots and indents from where Night Shift was biting at him like a scabby tomcat. All smooth, nothing jagged, nothing broken, nothing-

noth-

- _fuck_.

When he pulls his hand away from the back of his neck, he sees blood. "Motherfucker bit me again," he hisses.

The sound Reese makes is dark and threatening. "I'll speak to him about it," Reese says, carefully.

"'Speak to him' is code for 'fucking kill him', right?" and then he yelps when a rough hand comes down hard on his ass and grips with nail.

"What're you, talking to yourself?" Night Shift asks, digging in hard.

Through gritted teeth, Fusco mutters, "Anything to keep from talking to you."

Shouldn't have said that. Should not have said that.

A few minutes later, Fusco's in the bathroom nursing a bloody nose while Reese bounces Night Shift off the walls. Not too hard, he can't help but notice as he watches in the mirror. Can't risk marking up a client, can he? Christ. Fusco sneezes blood into the sink.

"Let's be inescapably clear," Reese is saying in the next room. "You can play rough, mark him up a little, but the second you draw blood, you breach our contract. When you breach our contract, Barry, I get pissed off."

"Okay, okay! I got it, ya fuckin' psycho. How much?"

"Double."

" _Fuck you_."

"Double. We're trying to set a precedent here, Barry. You don't make my guy bleed for free."

"Fine." The rustle of bills. "Jesus Christ, it was an accident."

"Hitting him wasn't."

After, Reese sits on the bed counting the cash until he notices Fusco struggling to clean the bite on the back of his neck. Then he goes to help, takes the thin, scratchy washcloth from Fusco, rinses it out, starts to dab at him gently. "It's not too deep," Reese says.

That doesn't stop Fusco fretting.

"If you ever need extra cash in a hurry," Reese says, "you could always goad him into hitting you again."

"Thanks for the tip," Fusco mutters into the mirror. "You're my fucking hero, you know that?"

***

_He's done it only once._

_Some would say more than once, but Fusco wouldn't, because that wasn't for money._

_At this time, he's only done it once and when he realizes he needs money because the divorce is sucking him dry, he knows he can do it again._

_And because he's already done it once, he knows enough to be scared._

_He asks Simmons to find him a client. He also asks Simmons to be his backup because Simmons is the only one who knows about all the disparate parts of him. Simmons does the first thing in exchange for a 30% finder's fee. To the second thing, he says, "What, do you want your hand held too? Get out there, pussy."_

_So he gets out there. He's supposed to be waiting in this bar, maybe getting a few drinks in his system, but he's a half an hour early and he's too scared to even drink because much as he wants to black whatever is about to happen to him out, he can't afford to lose his wits. Not now._

_So instead he smokes a rare cigarette outside the bar and tries to get himself under control. It's not working. He's scared of every passerby, every sound, every movement. When a bum seems to walk out of nothingness and careens directly into his side, Fusco almost has a goddamn heart attack._

_He stands there, gasping, heart pounding, and he grabs the collar of the bum's threadbare overcoat. "Give me my fucking wallet," Fusco huffs._

_The bum turns to face him, raises one eyebrow, passes the wallet back from the depths of his coat. "Evening, Detective," he says, straightening his clothes when Fusco lets him go. "Buy me a drink?"_

_Fusco shakes his head. "How has no one kicked your ass yet?"_

_"Because," and the bum leans in close, and Fusco has to turn away because this may be one of the classier bums he's ever met, but his breath is still rank, "I'm very talented."_

_Fusco shoves him away. "Good for you. Never breathe that close to my face again." He thinks a second. "You want to put that talent to use?"_

_His answering glare is suspicious, but not disinterested._

_"Here's how it works. I give you ten bucks right now. That's for nothing. But," he says, "if you stick around, do what I ask, that's another forty bucks. Fifty bucks total. That'll get you a better class of hooch, my friend. Or a whole lot of Night Train. I'm not gonna tell you how to spend your money."_

_"What do I have to do?" he asks._

_"Just keep an eye on me," Fusco says."I'm gonna meet with someone in there, we're probably gonna go someplace nearby and if it looks like I'm about to get the shit beaten out of me, you step in and kick his ass. Sound good?"_

_The bum holds out one grimy, raggedy-nailed hand. "That sounds like my skill set exactly."_

***

Reese is sitting on Fusco's couch, wearing Fusco's bathrobe, eating Fusco's cereal. His stare is nearly innocent.

"You know, when I gave you a key, that wasn't an invitation for you to start wearing my fucking clothes," Fusco says as he hangs up his jacket and slams the front door.

"How'd it go?" Reese asks.

"They don't think I have anything." Fusco takes his shoes off too, and Reese pats the threadbare couch cushion next to him, so Fusco goes over to join him while Reese picks up the box of cereal and pours him a bowl of his own.

"'Think?'" Reese repeats. Then, "Milk's in the fridge, by the way. And go get yourself a spoon."

Fusco gets up with a sigh. "Yeah, 'think,'" he says on the way to the kitchenette. "Some of the test results are gonna be a while."

"I'm gonna kill him," Reese says, sing-song.

"Yeah, I'm sure."

"No, really," Reese reassures him. "Once he stops being worth something to us, he's done. If he puts you out of commission, he's done twice. Painfully."

Fusco returns to the couch with his carton of milk and his deformed spoon. "What happens if he does? To me, I mean. I don't give a fuck about him. What if he puts me out of commission?" What if his bites make me so fucking diseased that all I can do anymore is die quietly until I run out of money and die quickly and violently? What if I stop being a valid meal ticket?

Reese takes the milk, pours it into the bowl. "We'll think of something."

"Maybe we can sell your ass," Fusco ponders.

"Would that turn your mood around?" Reese asks. "Selling my ass to the highest bidder?"

"I'm just saying, I think we'd have more takers."

"Maybe at first," Reese says. "But I don't have the temperament."

"And I do?"

Reese doesn't say anything. He just hands Fusco his bowl of cereal. "You have nothing to worry about, Lionel," he says. "I have it under control."

Fusco sighs, takes his first spoonful. "Thanks for making dinner."

Reese smiles to himself.

***

_The guy seems okay at first. Not nice, not a romantic or anything, but Fusco doesn't really want that. He just wants his money and for this to be over with._

_The guy seems to agree. He mentions a motel a few blocks away, and do they want to move there? They do._

_When they get outside, the bum is nowhere to be seen. Fuck it. Ten bucks down the drain. It could be worse. At least the guy seems okay._

_The guy walks with his arm around Fusco, and even though he knows it's not for real, Fusco kind of likes it._

***

Reese cancels all of Fusco’s appointments for a week until the test results come back clean ("Told you, Lionel.") and then Reese wastes no time at all booking him new ones.

"Don't I get two weeks vacation time? I'm pretty sure I read that in the contract somewhere."

"Take it up with the Terreros. Do you want the money or not?"

It's a good point. Fusco doesn't complain until the first person back in the game is Night Shift. "I don't think he wants to kiss and make up, Reese," he says.

Reese says, absently, "Don't kiss him. I don't care if you didn't catch anything last time."

Fusco crosses his arms. “I don’t want to see him,” he says. “I don’t want to work with him anymore.”

Reese shrugs. “So don’t.”

Silence.

“Don’t work with him. Tell me to tell him no and we’ll drop him. I’ve been saying that since you started seeing him. You’re the one who wants to wait until he almost kills you to say he’s not worth it. He’s not. He never was.”

Fusco closes his eyes, hugs his arms close to his chest. “When is it?” he asks.

Reese’s sigh is long. “Friday night. Just like always.”

His teeth seem to grit of their own accord. “So are you driving me or what?”

***

_He doesn’t catch on at any point, and that’s the worst part. If he’d been crafty about this, if all of his worry and caution and attempts to hire protection had really meant anything, it might be bearable. He can stand being outfoxed. He’s always being tricked by people who are smarter than him._

_But somehow, when it happens, there isn’t an ounce of suspicion in his heart._

_The click of the knife is almost lost in the click of the door, so Fusco doesn’t even know that something is awfully, terribly wrong until he’s half-turned around and the guy says, “Okay, strip,” and the gleam of the blade slides across his eye and what else can he do._

_“Okay,” Fusco responds. “Okay. We’re okay.” He begins to fumble with the buttons on his shirt._

_He strips slowly, eyes on the knife but afraid to turn his head any further. He tells himself that the guy just doesn’t want to pay, that this will only be a wasted evening bookended by robbery, instead of what it is._

_“On the bed,” the guy says, and it’s amazing how fast Fusco’s hopes can still sink when he hasn’t really raised them up at all. Still, he’s not fighting. He still values his life. He’s not sure why anymore. He wants to think it’s his son, but he can’t think about his son, not here, not in connection with this. Fusco’s hands hit the bedspread and he crawls forward. He won’t look back. He won’t._

_The guy follows him, climbs on top of him, presses the tip of the blade to his neck and screws it, exerting only the lightest pressure, not enough to draw blood. “Hold still,” he whispers, still pressing. “Just hold still.”_

_Fusco, who is staring into the whorls of the motel bed’s wooden headboard, shuts his eyes._

_The door flies open with a sharp crack and the guy on top of Fusco has time to say “The hell?” before he’s dragged away, falls with a grunt and a thud to the floor. Fusco’s eyes fly open and he rolls to find the bum in the room, going at the guy with the knife with a goddamn Louisville Slugger like a knight in foul, vomit-stained armor._

_He should be creeping for the door right now, picking up his clothes and getting changed in the hallway and not caring who sees, just so long as he gets away from this carnival of horrors. But Fusco can’t quite get himself to move. He’s stuck on his rescuer, on how his movements have gone from a drunken scramble to flowing, lethally efficient movement. He’s seen this change before, lots of times, every time he had to pick up the bum for drunk and disorderly or assault. But he’s rarely had the chance to watch from the outside, to really admire, and it’s pretty incredible, the way he moves when the killing song plays through him._

_He’s starting to wind down now, not even hitting Fusco’s john anymore, just aiming rough, sharp kicks to his chest and stomach and finally he grunts “Stay down,” and he finally stops. He looks at Fusco once, and then immediately looks down. Eyes on the floor, he finds where Fusco dropped his underwear and throws them to him._

_“Thanks,” Fusco says. He eases them on. “I didn’t think you followed.”_

_“I’m good at moving unseen,” he says. He steals a look at Fusco and there’s a shy kind of pride to it, like he hasn’t had a chance to be someone’s invisible shadow in a while and he’s pleased at how good he still is._

_“Well, I owe you big time,” Fusco says as he slides off the bed and puts his pants on. “Where’d you get a bat?”_

_“They had it behind the front desk,” the bum says innocently._

_Fusco thinks about asking, decides not to. “You want to get paid?” he asks._

_He nods._

_“Then check if he has a wallet on him. We need to get out of here.”_

***

“Guess you’re wondering why I bother.”

Fusco wasn’t wondering. He’s just trying to while away the time until Night Shift leaves and the money’s on the dresser and all this ugly bullshit is done with. “I guess so,” he says, shifting on the edge of the bed.

“Truth is,” Night Shift says, “you’re nothin’ special. I could get somebody prettier, softer, and cheaper, I bet. No problem. But you know how I like to play rough, don’t you, Lionel?”

He cringes at the sound of his own name in this place, not from Reese’s mouth, not a sometimes-reassuring, sometimes-mocking friendly little voice in his ear, but from this fucker. He wants to rip out this guy’s tongue.

Fusco nods. He sits still.

“Well, I have to tell you,” and he crouches in front of Fusco, forces his way into the focus of Fusco’s lowered eyes, “I don’t think any of them would let me wreck them the way I do you. They just don’t have the appetite for punishment.” He tilts his head to one side. “The rule is still that I can’t draw blood, right?”

“Right.” A cold trickle of apprehension runs down Fusco’s back.

“Thought so.” Night Shift digs in the pockets of his jeans, pulls out a piece of metal that Fusco doesn’t recognize until he does and everything falls horribly into place. “Cigarette lighter out my car. Won’t spill a drop of your precious blood.”

Then, for the first time since he came into the room, Reese’s voice is in Fusco’s ear again. “We’re done here.”

The door flies open seconds later. Seconds after that, Reese has Night Shift on the floor, pressing burning welts into his face with that cigarette lighter from Night Shift’s car. Seconds after that, Reese is still beating him, like there’s nothing else in the world that he wants to be doing, and Fusco just sits on the bed, watching, because even after all this time, it’s still a joy to watch Reese beat a man.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Fusco asks Reese as he wipes the blood off his knuckles.

Reese says, “Clearing up your Friday nights.”

They have this down now, though it’s a dance they’ve done precious few times since the first. They look for a wallet and they blow, and nobody ever comes looking for them because nobody wants to admit to a cop that they’d pay to fuck someone like Fusco.

It’s good to be a bad habit.

“So,” Fusco says, leaning a little in the car so their upper arms bump. “What was that all about?”

“Lionel, do you really think I was going to let him burn you?”

“No,” he says, because he never did believe it, not really. “I mean about clearing up Fridays. What for?”

“Oh.” Reese cracks a smile. “Guess who called me?”

Fusco doesn’t guess. He just stares, open-mouthed.

“Your billionaire wants all of your Fridays from now on. Just makes sense to clear your schedule, Lionel. You’d be losing money on the deal.”

Fusco leans hard against Reese’s shoulder.

***

_They sit in a diner with Fusco divvying up the cash and the bum wolfing down an omelet, and Fusco says, “You know, I could use you again. Next time.”_

_He stops tearing savagely at the omelet, puts his fork down. “Was that experience not enough for you?” he asks._

_Fusco smiles into the Formica table, flicks a toast crumb across its glossy surface. “I guess it would be usually. But I need money.”_

_The bum nods solemnly. “I still get my share?”_

_“You get a bigger share.”_

_His eyes light up and for the second time tonight he holds out his hand. Fusco takes it. “John Reese,” he says._

_“Lionel Fusco,” Fusco tells him. “Although I guess you already knew.”_

_“I did,” Reese says. “Pass the pepper, Lionel.”_

_“It’s a two foot table. Get it yourself, Reese.”_

_It’s the last big meal they have for a while, but the first of many that they share._


End file.
